£10m has been paid on illegal working fines.  Do you have your procedures in place?

By Brian Harrington, director in employment law at Lupton Fawcett.

Around £10m in illegal working fines have been issued in the first quarter of 2017 according to UK Visas and Immigration which equated to 681 penalties issued to employers.

The vast majority of illegal workers (502) were found to be in London and the South East of England.  52 workers were found to be working illegally in the North East England, Yorkshire and Humberside leading to fines for employers in our region to the tune of £605,000.

Brian Harrington

Whilst the quarterly report shows a decrease in the number of fines for illegal workers compared to the same period last year, employers should not rest on their laurels. The penalties for employing illegal workers were increased last year with the introduction of the Immigration Act 2016. This introduced new measures to combat illegal working including the extension of the existing criminal offence of “knowingly employing an illegal worker” to include circumstances where an employer has “reasonable cause to believe” that a person is an illegal worker. The penalty for conviction for this offence was increased from 2 to 5 years.  In addition the power to close businesses that continue to employ illegal workers was introduced as were increased powers for immigration officers to enter business premises to search for documents and to seize and retain evidence in relation to an offence. A new and important offence was also created to enable the earnings of illegal workers to be seized under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

In total, UK Visas and Immigration reported that 902 workers were found to be working illegally between 1st January and 31st which is a decrease of 32.4% as compared to last year. Whether this is a result of the impact of Brexit and the fact that many employees who were working illegally have returned to their native countries or whether it is due to the impact of the more severe sanctions introduced by last year’s Immigration Act is unclear.

What is clear however is that it is unlawful to employ someone who does not have the right to reside and work in the UK, or who is working in breach of their conditions of stay and if the leaked Government report on Border, Immigration and Citizenship system is anything to go by, the onus on employers to police the system is only set to become more extensive after Brexit when EU nationals will also become subject to a checking procedure. If you are in doubt as to whether your workers are working legally then take advice.